It takes courage for Jewish and Arab parents in Israel to swim against the social and political current by sending their children to one of the five integrated Jewish-Arab schools in the country, rather than to the segregated schools that constitute the norm. The first part of this paper, extracted largely from an earlier publication by Hand in Hand Centre for Jewish-Arab Education in Israel, presents the perceptions and experiences of four Jewish parents and five Arab parents. In the second part, taken largely from a research report submitted to the Bernard van Leer Foundation, University in Jerusalem anthropologist Zvi Bekerman describes research with children who attend the Jewish-Arab schools and urges the schools to push towards further transformation. PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A WEB-BASED PUBLICATION ONLY; NO PRINTED COPIES WILL BE PRODUCED.

Developing programmes to promote ethnic diversity in early childhood: Lessons from Northern Ireland

Fecha publicación:

04/2009

Autor:

Paul Connolly

Series:

Working Papers
No 52

This working paper focuses on some of the issues and challenges faced in developing early childhood programmes to promote racial and ethnic diversity in societies characterised by deep divisions and/or conflict. The central argument of the paper is that the development, delivery and evaluation of such programmes need to be informed by three core values: they should be children’s rights-based, outcomes-focused, and evidence-informed. Northern Ireland provides a useful case study because its people are emerging from 30 years of armed conflict. The ability to study the development of an early childhood programme aimed at promoting understanding and respect for ethnic diversity in such a context raises a number of fundamental issues of relevance to a wide range of other situations and contexts. Paul Connolly is Professor of Education and Director of the Centre for Effective Education at Queen’s University Belfast, and the founding Co-Director of the Joint Learning Initiative on Children and Ethnic Diversity.